Yeah, yeah, I know. Cry me a river, you bleeding-heart-liberal-snowflake-whatever. Being an artist is tough.

It is, though. I mean, many things are difficult. I imagine being a head-in-the-sand conservative is very difficult for some people. But being an artist is my thing, and at times it's very tough.

For example: last week I had the... pleasure?... of meeting a fellow writer. A very successful writer, by all accounts. This gentleman is full-time, has published 17 books (and is working on number 18), and, sadly, is not a very nice human being.

I mean, in the grand scheme of things, I didn't witness him kick any puppies. But he had that loud, brash, forward-facing arrogance about everything that just oozed "I'm so good at this writing thing, and you never, ever will be."

Me: "Hey, do you know any good editors? Mine, unfortunately, is too busy these days."Him: "Oh, sure! My editor (name drops famous editor) is great, but is booked solid for the next 8 months and costs $12,000 per book."Me: "... huh. I guess a 'no' wouldn't have worked?" (Out loud, I said "Oh, that's too bad" because I'm not a jerk)

And it just kinda sucks. You want to believe that people who succeed are nice, ya know? That they work hard, and therefore understand how hard it is to do what it is we do... but then you meet somebody like this guy, who's an arrogant jerk-face, and you think "Right. These are the kinds of jerks that make money, not the nice ones."

Oh well. Nothing I can do about him except try to become successful so that there are a few more not-jerks in the general writer-population, I suppose.